ADJ Lighting Upgrade Brings New Life To Long Beach's Sevilla Nightclub

When the management of a popular Californian nightclub recently decided that it was time to invest in an upgrade to the venue’s lighting system, they opted for an all-ADJ package of fixtures. Including moving heads, washes, effects and an updated control system, the upgrade has delivered a new lease of life to the club. Not only has the atmosphere on the dancefloor been lifted, but new customers have been attracted to experience what it has to offer for the first time, which has helped to cement the club’s place in the local nightlife scene for many more years to come.

One of a chain of three venues located throughout California, the Sevilla Nightclub is well-established in Long Beach. In fact, local DJ turned lighting designer Edgar Gonzalez has been a regular at the venue for many years. Having built up a rapport with the club’s management, this meant that when the decision was made to revitalize the club’s lighting system they immediately reached out to Edgar for help.

Edgar started out by meeting with the Sevilla Long Beach team – headed up by Nightclub Manager, Elvis Diaz – to find out exactly what they wanted to achieve with their new lighting system. Taking this into account, as well as their available budget, Edgar then invited them to ADJ’s LA showroom to demonstrate some potential fixture options, before presenting three different options that fit within their budget. Following feedback from Elvis and his team, Edgar then narrowed this down to a final proposal which was accepted, supplied by local ADJ dealers Six Star DJ, and installed in time for the club’s 2018 New Year’s Eve Party.

At the heart of the new system are five ADJ Vizi Beam RXONE fixtures which are arranged in the center of the club’s long main room, above the dancefloor and in front of the stage. A potent moving head beam fixture, the Vizi Beam RXONE is powered by a powerful 1R HTI long life lamp and generates a super-sharp beam that is ideal for generating mesmerizing midair effects in a nightclub environment.

“They really fell in love with the prism effect,” explained Edgar. “In fact, every time I’ve demo’ed RXONEs and thrown on that 16-facet prism with the beam pointed right at them, clients are always impressed. For Sevilla, they also wanted a fixture that was extremely powerful to make a real impact above the dancefloor, which made the RXONE a clear choice.”

The versatile Vizi RXONE is used at Sevilla to serve a number of very different purposes. At the beginning of each evening the 16-facet prism is used to create a wide pattern effect that is programmed to move slowly around the dancefloor to set the mood before it starts to fill with people. Then later, when the dancing is in full flow, the fixture is used to punch through the smoke in the venue to create energetic mid-air beam effects. Finally, the fixtures have also be programmed to serve as static stage wash lights, when required. With their in-built frost filters engaged, the five units are able to fill the whole stage area with an even wash of color to provide illumination for live performers and dancers.

To round out the dancefloor lighting, three of ADJ’s unique Asteroid 1200 spherical 360-degree rotation pixel beam moving heads were installed in place of the mirror balls that used to be in the club. One sits directly over the middle of the dancefloor, while the other two extend the lightshow out to the sides of the room. Each generating 12 potent beams of light, which project out from every side, the three Asteroid 1200s are capable of filling the whole venue with movement and color on their own, but also look great used in conjunction with the moving head beam effects.

A video screen sits in the middle of the club’s stage, and that is now flanked by two of ADJ’s Dotz Matrix 4x4 COB LED pixel fixtures. These were chosen for their flexibility, and have been programmed by Edgar to fulfil a number of different roles as part of the club’s lightshow. They not only generate pixel-mapped ‘eye candy effects’, but also serve as color washes for the dancefloor as well as stage blinders and even house/work lights at the end of the night.

The club’s video screen has also been surrounded on three sides by ADJ Ricochet LED-powered beam effect fixtures. These unique units – which generate laser-style mid-air beam effects – were chosen and positioned to create effects such as ‘liquid sky’ just above the heads of the crowd on the dancefloor, without the safety concerns associated with using powerful laser fixtures pointing towards people’s faces in what is a relatively small space.

At either side of the of the dancefloor and stage area the club has lounge style seating areas and Edgar also wanted to extend the lightshow, in a slightly more subtle way into those areas. To achieve that, he specified six of ADJ’s new Pocket Pro compact and affordable moving head fixtures which offer incredible bang-for-buck with a 25-Watt bright white LED light-source and the flexibility of replaceable GOBOs.

“There was nothing in the way of lighting in those seating areas,” commented Edgar, “which meant they were very dark spaces. So I wanted to add in some color, excitement and movement, but not too much. We went with the Pocket Pros because they are very affordable, but for a budget fixture the output is really impressive and perfectly suited to that purpose.”

To complete the installation, two ADJ Fog Fury Jett high velocity fog machines were positioned above the front of the stage, pointing down into the crowd. Illuminated by 12 x 3-Watt RGBA LEDs, the Fog Fury Jett creates impactful blasts of colored fog that can be directed at any angle. At Sevilla these units are used to create CO2-style bursts of fog that shoot down onto the dancefloor, while simultaneously providing fog to enhance the beam effects of the lighting system.

For control, Edgar suggested that the club upgraded it’s current outdated DMX software system to ADJ’s Comp Show SDE coupled with an Elation Professional MIDICON to provide a hands-on interface for the club’s lighting operators. This was then hooked up to an ADJ D6 Branch DMX signal splitter / amplifier which distributes the control signal to the various areas around the club in which the lighting and effects equipment is situated.

Now that the new lighting system has been in place at Sevilla for a number of months, we recently spoke to Elvis to find out how it has been received by both the club’s management and clientele. “We are very satisfied with the new lighting, everything is working really well,” he enthused. “It has brought a new life to the venue; created a new experience. That has then attracted new customers to Sevilla who want to experience it for themselves, and we are now full to capacity every Saturday night.”

This just goes to show that with the right team, and the right products, lighting can really make a different to a venue – even without a huge budget. Through the vision of the Sevilla management, the expert technical knowledge of Edgar, and the effective and affordable lighting fixtures of ADJ, an experience has been created for the club’s patrons that truly surpasses the sum of its individual parts.